Is it possible to be a homemaker and work a full-time job? This is what my life currently looks like, and I’m doing my best!
My primary role in my life is that of a daughter of the Lord. I try to know, love, and serve God in everything that I do. He called me to the vocation of marriage, so my secondary role is Nathan’s wife. Loving him is God’s plan for my life, and I can love God through loving Nathan.
Some wives are called to be full-time homemakers, and some wives work full or part-time jobs. My husband and I both work so that we can support each other. Working a 9 to 5 definitely takes a lot of time and energy, but I understand the beauty and importance of homemaking, so I want to give as much of myself to my home as possible.
In the (almost) nine months that I’ve been married so far, I’ve been able to figure out how to navigate working and homemaking together. I’ve found a couple of ways that I can make my home while I work a full-time job, and they’re surprisingly simple once you incorporate them into your routine.
Be intentional with time
I used to mainly do housework on the weekends, but that would leave me burnt out and take away all of my time to rest.
Recently, I learned how to manage my time so that I can take care of things around our home in addition to working. I’ve found that I can do some homemaking things both before AND after work. I do smaller chores and prep work in the morning, and I take care of the bigger things at night. Before I go to work, I sweep the kitchen floor and put away the dishes that have been drying overnight. After my husband and I cook and eat dinner, we do the dishes, clean up the kitchen, and throw a load of laundry in the washing machine.
I still do chores on the weekends, but I save Saturdays for more involved projects, like decluttering an area of our home, changing the sheets, or cleaning the bathrooms. Because Sunday is a day of rest. I don’t do anything “extra” on those days beyond washing the dishes, a quick tidying up of a room, or other things that just need to be done every day.
Organize chores and be particular about it
I used to love looking at chore charts and schedules on Pinterest, but when I tried to use them, they never worked for my family. Instead, I made my own chore schedule that was realistic and suited my family.
Our chore chart is divided into daily chores, weekly chores, monthly chores, and quarterly chores. I outlined daily chores that my husband and I would do every morning and evening. Our weekly chores are extra chores that we do every week, but we plan it in such a way that we only have to do one extra chore a day. Our monthly chores are things that we do once or twice a month. We declutter an area of our home during a certain week of the month, and we change and wash the sheets every two weeks. Our quarterly chores are done on certain months of the year, and those are bigger things that don’t need to be done often.
I try not to do anything more than our daily chores on Sunday to keep it a day of rest.
Plan meals strategically
I LOVE to cook, and if I had the time, I would make sourdough bread, cook a big beautiful dinner every night, and bake to my heart’s content. However, as Nathan and I settled into a routine, we knew that some dinners have to be simpler than others.
Some of our meals are simple, and some are more complex throughout the week. Some weekdays are busier than others, so we plan our meals accordingly. On the days when we can come straight home from work and we don’t have anything else planned, we try new recipes or make dinners that take more time. When we have meetings, classes, errands or other things to do after work, we cook meals that call for a few ingredients and are usually done in less than an hour.
We like to plan our meals for the week during our family meetings on Sundays, and then we do our grocery shop on Tuesdays. Keeping a recipe binder is really helpful for us. We use one to organize our go-to recipes, make our meal plans, and follow while we cook.
Be okay with an incomplete to-do list
It took me a long time to realize that the world will NOT explode if I don’t do everything that I had planned to do in a day. Even now, I’m still learning to be at peace with that.
Both at work and at home, I’m tempted to beat myself up if I don’t complete my daily to-do list. (To be honest, sometimes I set myself up for failure by putting too much on my list in the first place.) Either way, I remind myself that I’m only human and there’s only so much that I can do in a day.
I think about St. Teresa of Calcutta and how she said “God doesn’t call me to be successful. He calls me to be faithful.” This quote helps me to remember that I’m a beloved daughter of God and that my worth doesn’t lie in my productivity. It seems like it always comes down to the concept of doing little things with great love. No matter how many tasks I address in a day, as long as I do them with a loving heart, God can make them holy.
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Remember the “why”
Living my vocation as a wife is one of the best ways that I can know, love, and serve God. Therefore, making my home is a beautiful way that I can love my husband and God.
My job working for a nonprofit is another way that I can support my family because my income is helpful to us. I enjoy my job, but at the end of the day, I work a 9 to 5 because it’s how I support my family.
Homemaking while working a full-time job gives me the best of both worlds. I get to take care of my home and make it lovely, and I get to have a career. Both of these roles require service from a loving heart. It’s easy to see how a homemaker serves her family. Working for a nonprofit, I serve my community, but it also gives me an opportunity to serve my family. I try to approach both homemaking and working with an intentional mindset, remembering that this is where God is calling me right now and doing as much as I can with what He gives me.
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I was so happy to see that your wrote a new blog. I throughly enjoyed reading this. Very good example of living out your vocation of marriage. ❤️😊
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